Reading Ramsey

I'm reading Dave Ramsey!

Before my total emotional breakdown, I was loosely experimenting with the envelope method of budgeting. I wasn't entirely sure what the point was, but I was ready to give it a try. Now I know I skipped a couple of steps of Dave's plan...or at least, a hundred pages Into The Total Money Makeover, it seems I have. Step One is to save a thousand dollar emergency fund!

I can't say I've drunk Dave's kool-aid, but I CAN say that a $1000 emergency fund would have been damn handy a number of times these past few years. And the timing is fairly appropriate: August is the one month I'm allowed to get overtime through my company. I'm doing my absolute best to milk that. I also have a dentist visit, a dermatologist appointment, and a trip to the therapist this month, so it's not like I don't have any other expenses to face....buuuut if I save the money by September 1st, it's very reasonable to assume I can deal with all the final niggling personal debts by October 1st...and then...then what? I can finally and without a doubt be investing in financial freedom by the start of 2016!!!

First Days on The Wagon

I have been tracking expenses! Huzzah!

I made a pilot attempt in the last few days of July. And I fell off the wagon IMMEDIATELY. But, for the past four days I have been very honest and exact in my figures. And I hate it. 

For the entirety of 2015 I have spent my money as quickly as it comes in, sometimes more quickly than it comes in. I get paid twice a month. One check is enough to cover rent, which in turn pays for groceries and bills. There is even enough left over to buys a $62 monthly bus pass, so it's fair to say that one check covers all of my daily necessities. Then I have a whole other pay check to cover "everything else."

Naturally, I forget that "everything else" is pricey and also covers necessities. Dental and dermatology appointments, prescriptions, any hygiene products I care to indulge in...So I happen to spend pretty freely on the incidentals that pop up every month: birthday gatherings, family road trips out of town, new-second-hand clothes, drinks with friends, dates, and a steady flow of snacks...

Long story short: I'm consistently broke. I get my second check, pay a little over half of it to doctors, and spend the rest of it on Tex-Mex and cheap HEB nori rolls. In, like, five days. There are probably ten days out of every month that I have money in my pocket. I do tend to stash some of every check away for savings. But I draw on it to get through the last couple of days of every pay period.

The good news is that my life is stabilizing in every way. One of the reasons I fell into this destructive pattern is that I did not care about anything at all and never expected to again. Now I am coming into what I expect to be the most powerful period of my life, a time of absolutely no shackles and my first taste of personal freedom and autonomy. I get to decide what I want my life to look like. Getting there, however, requires an acknowledgement of what I am about now and how that needs to change. So, yeah, August is a month of opening my eyes, breathing, forgiving, and dreaming.